Sarah and I wake up to NPR. Which is usually nice, waking up to the soothing voices of Renee Montagne and Steve Inskeep … even when they’re reporting on devastating tragedies across the globe, they do so in a very calming manner. So imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to hear this asshole screaming in my ear. The Sports Curmudgeon! If there’s anything more irritating than waking up to the Sports Curmudgeon, I don’t know about it.

Oh wait, I do … it’s waking up to The Loh Life with Sandra Loh. Just take a minute and try to get through one of those programs; I dare you. She is of that most irritating class of people: the people who think the secret to comedy lies solely in the tone of one’s voice.

Which brings me to my theory: there are three kinds of funny in this world, funny, stupid funny, and NPR funny.* Funny is what funny people do. It doesn’t really need to be defined, because it’s just funny. Stupid funny is what Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller do. Sometimes, stupid funny is still pretty funny. NPR funny is what Garrison Keillor and the Car Talk guys do. NPR funny is almost never funny. I’ll take tragic over NPR funny any day. I would rather watch a documentary about a baby murderer than sit through an entire episode of Prairie Home Companion.

*Note: this category does not include This American Life, which is often quite genuinely funny. The only reason This American Life is on NPR is because there’s no place else for it to go. Really, it should just have its own network.

The lovely and talented Dave Ratzlow (a/k/a “The Ratzlow”) has politely allowed Amazon to sell his masterpiece CD, Silly Love Songs, in downloadable MP3 format. You can hook up with it right here.

Cartoonist John Martz redrew his mom’s entire yearbook. Pretty obsessive and awesome. (Thanks, BuzzFeed!)

Matt discovered there’s a Wikipedia entry on gleeking. I remember arguing with someone over whether the correct word was gleeking or gleeting. I always thought it was gleeking. I’m glad that Wikipedia has finally proved me right.

Bob Cole sent along this incredible video of the Leningrad Cowboys singing “Sweet Home Alabama.” No comments are necessary.

My friends Kyle, Clay, and Oliver have a new show in New York. If you live there, you should see it. These guys never disappoint. Details:

Tickets Now Onsale!
Only $15 with discount code “ROCK.”
Or pay-what-you-can on Thursdays 4/3, 4/10, 4/17.
To buy tickets, click here or call 212-868-4444.

HOSTAGE SONG
The new indie-rock musical
in a limited engagement

Stories and Book by Clay McLeod Chapman
Music and Lyrics by Kyle Jarrow
Directed by Oliver Butler

April 3-26
Thursdays through Saturdays at 8pm
At The Kraine Theater
(85 E. 4th Street btw 2nd and 3rd)

Bound and blindfolded in a war-torn country, two hostages take refuge in music, memory and each other in this new indie-rock musical. Hostage Song is the creation of a powerhouse combo of downtown favorites: playwright and novelist Clay McLeod Chapman (creator of the Pumpkin Pie Show), Kyle Jarrow (OBIE winning author of A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant, member of the glam rock band The Fabulous Entourage), and director Oliver Butler (The Debate Society).

Performances by Paul Thureen, Hanna Cheek, Hannah Bos, Abe Goldfarb and Clay McLeod Chapman.
Music performed by Kyle Jarrow, Drew St. Aubin, Paul Bates and Jonathan Sherrill.

“Mr. Jarrow is the kind of writer who likes to provoke people.” -The New Yorker

“Downtown hipster raconteur Clay McLeod Chapman wears his heart on his sleeve - a bloody, still-beating organ safety-pinned to his cuffs.” -Time Out New York

A Horse Trade Production
Stage Manager: Amy Ehrenberg, Lighting Designer: Mike Riggs, Set Designer: Amanda Rehbein, Costume Designer: Sean Tribble, Associate Producer: The Thursday Problem, Publicity: Emily Owens, Photography: Jeffrey Weiss, Graphic Design: Paul Thureen, Web Design: MLT.

To buy tickets click here or call 212-868-4444.

More info at www.hostagesong.com

McCarron got creative on request today, and the result is a beautiful thing to behold:

I’m writing a spelling book for kids right now, in case anyone wonders why I haven’t been in better touch. It’s a 250 page book in which my advice basically boils down to this: memorize the order of the letters in words. How much more can you say about spelling?

Here are some recent film recommendations to fill your time while you’re anxiously awaiting my return:

Chalk: Mockumentary about new high school teachers. They shot the film over 3 weeks in a Texas school using the kids who really went to the school. My dad watched it and said, “Ya know, that was probably fine for a small budget film, but it really wasn’t a very good movie.” So take your chances with this one.

The King of Kong: Documentary about a guy trying to beat the high score on Donkey Kong and the unbelievable amount of trouble he has to go through to be recognized. This one’s a crowd-pleaser … I don’t need to attach any caveats.

Pennies from Heaven: Bizarre musical from the 80s starring Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters. Excellent dancing.

Smiley Face: Stoner flick. I could not stop laughing, but I would only recommend it for people who think marijuana-instilled paranoia is really hilarious.

Wild Zero: Japanese rock and roll zombie movie that puts Rock n’ Roll High School to shame. You must have a high tolerance for camp to appreciate it.

Today, the inevitable article about the Diablo Cody backlash and the motivations behind it. Okay, I know yesterday I claimed to be seething with jealousy, but that was just a joke. It would be like being jealous of Josh Groban … sure, seems like he makes good money, but it comes with the price of having to be Josh Groban. I have no interest in being Diablo Cody, let’s get that straight. I don’t want to be known because I’m a former stripper, I want to be known because I’m the greatest living stripper in the world.

Sarah and I just finished watching the second season of Extras, in which The Office’s Ricky Gervais repeatedly derides his sitcom as getting laughs out of funny wigs and catchphrases. This seems to be the essence of Will Ferrell’s entire career. In the history of movies, has there ever been an actor who milked a single premise so blatantly? Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Blades of Glory, and now Semi-Pro: all movies that are built on the idea that Will Farrell as a loser who thinks he’s a winner is really, really funny.

I should footnote this by saying I actually thought Talladega Nights was really, really funny. But we’re talking theoretics here. And the theoretics tell us that Will Farrell has an incredible amount of chutzpah for continuing to force this single-character-driven one-note premise on the comedy world. Here’s a partial list, off the top of my head, of other movies in this same realm: Dodgeball, Balls of Fury, Walk Hard, Hot Rod, Zoolander, and Owen Wilson’s upcoming Drillbit Taylor. They’re all movies about a single ridiculous-looking and acting character who looks and acts ridiculous and eventually wins some completely irrelevant battle and gets the nondescript female lead to appreciate him for the bumbling asshole he is.

It makes me wonder if we will ever see a comic performer or writer who is interested in stretching beyond the easy laugh. I’m not talking about going dramatic … everyone takes a stab at that. I think Jim Carrey is a really unfunny person who is sometimes great in dramatic roles. I’m saying, why would these guys use their substantial box office power to create the same movie over and over again? Is it strictly about money? Or do they think these movies are deeper than they are? Do they have any interest in creating something a little bit different? I would think they’d have enough money … so what do they possibly get from churning out forgettable movies that follow the same template? Thinking about it leads me to believe that Will Farrell, Ben Stiller, et al are either A) not very bright or B) the enemies of culture.

The reason I started writing this had nothing to do with making a case for Will Farrell as evil, however. (Sidenote: I just learned that Semi-Pro is set in my hometown of Flint, Michigan. I’m sure they did this because Flint is an instant punchline. I would doubt Semi-Pro really examines the misguided corporate policies that led to Flint’s downfall, but I digress.) The reason I started writing this is because I am obsessed with bad taglines, and Semi-Pro has two of the worst I’ve ever heard: The Greatest Fro on Earth and Putting the Funk into the Dunk.

The first one sucks because all it advertises is the aforementioned funny wig. Who would ever go see a movie strictly because the lead character has an afro? Plus, it’s a pun on “The Greatest Show on Earth,” which is the tagline for the circus. Is this movie about the circus?

The second one rhymes, at least, but what’s with the awkward wording? I would think “They Put the Funk in the Dunk” is a lot more obvious than “Putting the Funk into the Dunk.” The awkwardness of this wording leads me to believe that there was a real meeting about how the copywriter was going to approach this. I would imagine he showed up carrying a notepad with the only thing he could think of to say about this one-joke movie: “They Put the Funk in the Dunk.” The studio executives looked at the line and thought deeply. “Now, if we say ‘they put‘ the funk in the dunk, it implies that the funk has previously been placed inside this dunk. Who would want to see that movie? I look at that poster and I say, ‘The funk is already in the dunk? Count me out!’ On the other hand, if I see that they are actively ‘putting‘ the funk in the dunk throughout the course of the movie, I have my tickets in hand. I know that I will see these guys putting that funk where it belongs. That’s better. Much, much better. You can go now.

“WAIT! STOP! This still doesn’t sit right with me. It’s the word ‘in’. If they’re putting their funk in the dunk, it would imply they used up all their funk in the process of dunking the ball, which, ya’ know, they put the funk in, they do their dunk, and then there’s nothing left to see. No sir; I’ll tell you what these guys did. These guys took all that sweet funk, they bundled it up, and they transferred the funk from themselves, mind you, which is where the funk will be before the dunk takes place (and presumably, immediately thereafter), and into the dunk, their valuable funk essence filling the dunk and breathing precious, life-giving funk into it, then whooshing back into their bodies making them more powerful, virile, and yes, funky with each beautiful dunk. Now that’s a movie I want to see.”

The more I think about it, and the more I savor its bizarre specificity, I am willing to bet that this tagline was actually more pondered over than the film script itself.

Today Slate has an article about the movie Meet the Spartans. It was made by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, who also did the Scary Movie series and some other similar piles of crap. I saw the first Scary Movie and thought it was painful. Apparently, they’ve only gotten worse. This quote cracked me up:

Friedberg and Seltzer do not practice the same craft as P.T. Anderson, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, Kevin Costner, the Zucker Brothers, the Wayans Brothers, Uwe Boll, any dad who takes shaky home movies on a camping trip, or a bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it.

I saw Juno over Christmas. I did not like it. I am apparently in the minority. The film has just grossed over $100 million, which is unheard of for indie films. Even Little Miss Sunshine did not make that kind of money. So my question is — why? Why do people love this movie so much? Did anyone see it? I did not find any of the dialogue particularly clever. I did not care about the relationship between Juno and the Michael Cera character. I cringed anytime any of the characters discussed music or movies. A sampling of what the dialogue was like, for those who haven’t seen it:

Jason Bateman: I think the best time for music was in the ’90s when bands like Alice in Chains and Green River typified the grunge movement from Seattle where people wore plaid shirts and drank coffee and there was grunge.

Juno: Are you kidding? I’m the most precocious 16 year old on the planet and I know that the best time for music was in 1979 and the No Wave movement and Glenn Branca and the drummer in Blondie was named Clement Burke.

Jason Bateman: You’re out of your mind if you think that! Did you know that Mudhoney’s breakthrough 1991 album Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge was typical of the grunge movement from Seattle and it was engineered by Conrad Uno and released on July 26th?

Juno: Iggy and the motherfuckin’ Stooges, budonkadonk LOL.

Jason Bateman: May I feel your boobies?

Sarah, my dad, and I were trashing the movie when we left the theater and my mom defended it — “oh, c’mon,” she said. “It was just a cute, small movie.” Which, I would be willing to give it to someone who felt that way about it. It was just a cute, small movie is probably the right attitude for watching Juno. I was expecting cute, funny movie, so I was disappointed. But I think most audiences do not see it as just a cute, small movie … I think they see it as a heartwarming festival of laughs. The parts where Juno was speaking like a 29 year-old bad writer (i.e., pretty much everything out of her mouth)? I think a lot of people aspire to talk like that. They wish they knew how to sound that pretentious.

I dunno. I don’t get it. I do know this: here’s an article about the Juno backlash that is every bit as annoying as the film. The article is written by someone who liked the movie but doesn’t want to like it anymore because it’s up for an Oscar against serious movies like No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. There is no place for me in this fight. It seems like in America you either love Juno for the wrong reasons or hate it for the wrong reasons. I, on the other hand, disliked it for exactly the right reasons. I win!